Master of Public Health
To build a meaningful career improving health and equity across India
India’s health story is one of both progress and urgency.
We have conquered polio, reduced maternal and infant mortality, and improved life expectancy. Yet, malnutrition, climate-linked diseases, mental health challenges, and deep healthcare inequalities continue to affect millions.
If you want to design better systems, influence policy, and work directly with communities, this programme will prepare you to do it.
Join a new generation of public health professionals who turn purpose into real change.
Who should join?
This programme is for people who want their work to matter and make a tangible difference in people’s lives.
You will fit right in if you are:
- A medical or non-medical professional looking to build a career with social purpose
- Curious about how policy, systems, and communities shape health outcomes
- Eager to apply your skills in research, data, communication, or programme design to real-world health challenges
You will graduate with the capability to take on roles that strengthen India’s health ecosystem— from grassroots initiatives to national policy spaces.
Why study public health at Azim Premji University?
Learn by doing
Go beyond theory. Work directly with communities, health programmes, and systems to understand public health from the ground up.
Interdisciplinary learning
Learn to see health in its full complexity drawing on perspectives from epidemiology, sociology, economics, policy.
Career-ready skills
Master practical tools in data analysis, policy evaluation, research, and programme management skills in high demand across the sector.
Every class, field visit, and project prepares you to step into public health work with skill, confidence, and purpose.
What will you learn?
Programme Structure
A learning journey that blends knowledge, field experience, and purpose
Public health is not learned from textbooks alone; it is understood by engaging with people, systems, and the realities of health on the ground.
Our programme is designed to help you do exactly that.
Build a strong foundation through courses that bring together perspective, evidence, ethics and action:
What is Public Health? Perspectives, Ethics, and Values
Core
This course aims at introducing students to understanding and examining public health by interrogating what is ‘public’ and ‘health’.
Understanding Health Systems and Policy
Core
This course examines the health policy landscape and applies health systems frameworks to understand real-world public health concerns.
Applied Epidemiology: Generating quantitative evidence in health
Core
Using epidemiological research methods to generate evidence.
Health Economics and Financing
Core
Students will learn the theories of health financing, various existing methods of health financing, the evolution of health insurance, and the existing health insurance options and their stakeholders.
Programme Planning, Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation
Core
It is a skill based course that would take students through the processes of how to design, monitor and evaluate public health programs.
Health as Social Phenomena
Core
What are the social factors that affect health of individuals and a community?
Social Research Methods in Health: Generating Qualitative Evidence in Health
Core
Understand the relevance of qualitative evidence for making informed public health actions.
Intersectoral Approach to Public Health Actions
Core
This course examines the relevance for intersectoral thinking, evidence and actions to environmental and other factors that impact health including nutrition, water, hygiene, and sanitation.
Disease Profiles and Health Programmes in India
Core
Understanding the programmatic responses by the government to diseases profiling, in the form of the goals, structure, actors and impacts.
Customise your learning with electives that match your interests and career goals:
Perspectives: Broaden your understanding of how culture, gender, globalisation, and diverse medical systems influence health and healthcare practices.
Programme Management: Develop advanced skills in planning, implementation, evaluation, and governance of health programmes and systems.
Evidence in Public Health: Strengthen your research skills through advanced training in epidemiology, biostatistics, qualitative, and participatory research methods.
Public Health Actions: Learn how to translate ideas into action through advocacy, development communication, and social accountability initiatives.
Public Health Themes: Engage with contemporary and often overlooked areas such as adolescent and mental health, disability and technology, public health law, WASH, work and health, and global health.
Every semester takes you beyond the classroom:
Community Immersion: Understand health realities by working directly with local communities.
Health System Engagement: Experience how public programmes operate on the ground.
Internship and Field Project: Apply everything you have learned to a real health challenge.
By the end of two years, you will not only have a degree, but you will have field-tested experience and a clear sense of where you can make significant contributions.
Our graduates work with government agencies, NGOs, international organisations, and research institutions. Here are a few roles you may end up in:
Programme Manager: Lead the design and execution of public health projects that bring healthcare closer to communities.
Public Health Researcher: Investigate health patterns and generate insights that shape better programmes and policies.
Health Policy Analyst: Study systems, identify gaps, and recommend strategies to strengthen healthcare delivery.
Epidemiologist: Track diseases, assess risks, and design interventions to protect populations.
Health Educator / Intervention Specialist: Create and run campaigns that enable people to make informed health decisions.
Your work could help shape how India stays healthy.
Explore
Resources & Activities
-
Book
Creative Expressions on Mental Health among Youth
What does mental health mean to the youth? How is it expressed beyond just diagnostic labels? The book on ‘Creative expressions on mental health among youth’ features over 40 powerful contributions through a range of forms that include poetry, prose, Gond and Bhil art, sketches,…
-
Article
Contexts and Priorities: Reflections on Developing a Master of Public Health Programme in India
While the recent COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated attention to the public health challenges of our times, many of these concerns are certainly not new. There are multiple public health concerns including the rising burden of non-communicable diseases, health risks due to environmental degradation and climate…